Travel Thread

[tifosi77]

OP above makes a good point. It's quite often that if your destination airport is getting slammed by weather, the ATC system won't "release" the IFR flight plan for your flight until the weather situation clears. If Atlanta is getting hammered by a line of severe weather, for example, ATC doesn't want to deal with having a ton of aircraft in holding patterns in the Atlanta area, so they'll just refuse to let flights to Atlanta take off until they know they'll be able to actually land at Atlanta once they get there. And those delays will then filter down to other flights later in the day using those same aircraft. So it's entirely possible to be weather delayed even if it's perfectly clear at your origin airport.

I think a lot of travelers also underestimate the effect of thunderstorms. Even the largest of commercial aircraft do not fly through thunderstorms, and I could probably list half a dozen commercial flights or more that crashed purely due to heavy rain and wind / wind shear / microbursts from thunderstorms. An Airbus A320 will have to fly around a thunderstorm that you wouldn't think twice about driving though, and neither could it land or take off during that same storm.

We had favorable winds aloft when we went to Singapore, and so our 17.5 hour flight "only" took 16.5 hours. However, we were so early, we couldn't be worked into the pattern for close to half an hour, and so we were vectored out over Sumatra to punch holes in clouds until they could space us in. By the time we were put into the stack, a monsoon was approaching, so we had to sort of hurry up and get down quickly. During our ground roll on the runway, we got swamped by the storm; if we had been literally 60 seconds later we probably would've been given a go-around.

[nocera]

Leaving SF today and driving the PCH (mostly) to LA. We enjoyed the city for the most part, though we’re looking forward to nice weather now. Yesterday we rode bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge, hung out in Sausalito for bit before ferrying back because there was no way in hell I was doing that ride again.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

I forget, are we allowed to use "the" before PCH on this forum? wasn't that banned

[NTP66]

Source of the post Leaving SF today and driving the PCH (mostly) to LA.

Enjoy - that's a terrific drive.

[blackjack68]

Flying to Mississippi (!) this weekend for work.

Glad I’m vaccinated.

[NTP66]

I can't believe you even admitted that.

[tifosi77]

I forget, are we allowed to use "the" before PCH on this forum? wasn't that banned

Leaving SF today and driving the PCH (mostly) to LA.

[shafnutz05]

I guess you don't refer to "Lincoln Highway" as "The Lincoln Highway", so I can see that.

Edit: On the flip side, when people refer to the Long Island Expressway, they always refer to it as "The LIE". Is there a hard and fast rule?

[tifosi77]

I always thought the thing with PCH was unique to PCH. We don't call it 'the PCH', but freeways are always referred to as 'the [freeway number]'. But even almost 25 years in, referring to roadways I grew up knowing the eastern colloquial way sound weird applying LA rules. Like in the eastern part of the country, Interstate 95 is "I-95"; in LA, we'd call it "the 95", and that doesn't sound right. But I don't hedge at all with 'the 101' or 'the 10' or 'the 405'.

*shrug*

[blackjack68]

You take 295 up to 195 and across to the Garden State Parkway

[blackjack68]

I can't believe you even admitted that.

That I’m going to Mississippi?

That I work?

Or that I’m vaccinated?

[NTP66]

I can't believe you even admitted that.

That I’m going to Mississippi?

That I work?

Or that I’m vaccinated?

[blackjack68]

Meh, it’s where the conference is.

[shoeshine boy]

I always thought the thing with PCH was unique to PCH. We don't call it 'the PCH', but freeways are always referred to as 'the [freeway number]'. But even almost 25 years in, referring to roadways I grew up knowing the eastern colloquial way sound weird applying LA rules. Like in the eastern part of the country, Interstate 95 is "I-95"; in LA, we'd call it "the 95", and that doesn't sound right. But I don't hedge at all with 'the 101' or 'the 10' or 'the 405'.

*shrug*

what would you do if the Interstate and state highway had the same number? for instance, I-85 rolls right through GA but we've also got a state highway numbered 85. if it was in California would it be "california 85"?

[NTP66]

@tifosi77: Have you ever been to the Big Island? If so, thoughts?

[shafnutz05]

tifosi77: Have you ever been to the Big Island? If so, thoughts?

Big Island. Not the Big Island.

[tifosi77]

tifosi77: Have you ever been to the Big Island? If so, thoughts?

Nope, just Oahu and Maui. Off the top of my head, the only other island that I for certain know someone in my orbit to have visited is Kauai. (I have a good friend who is actually from Hawai'i who has never been to THE Big Island.)

[NTP66]

Okay, wasn’t sure if you made your way there or not. I was thinking about splitting up next year’s trip between the two, but may just wait until my daughter is older.

[NTP66]

BTW, I hate how cheap it is to get there from your area. I have seen deals as low as $99 RT.

And as for LAX, I swear whenever we arrive or depart, we spend 20 minutes taxiing to the gate, which is always apparently on the far side of the airport.

[tifosi77]

I always thought the thing with PCH was unique to PCH. We don't call it 'the PCH', but freeways are always referred to as 'the [freeway number]'. But even almost 25 years in, referring to roadways I grew up knowing the eastern colloquial way sound weird applying LA rules. Like in the eastern part of the country, Interstate 95 is "I-95"; in LA, we'd call it "the 95", and that doesn't sound right. But I don't hedge at all with 'the 101' or 'the 10' or 'the 405'.

*shrug*

what would you do if the Interstate and state highway had the same number? for instance, I-85 rolls right through GA but we've also got a state highway numbered 85. if it was in California would it be "california 85"?

I'm sure it does exist somewhere around here, but off the top of my head I don't know of any instances, so I'm unsure of the protocol. But in the case of numbered state roads they almost always also have a name. Like, near me is SR-27 that connects the West Valley to the coast over the mountain, but it's known as Topanga Canyon Blvd. Shoot, PCH is another example, as it's 'official' name is SR-1.

Should also note, this practice is limited to SoCal. The same US-101 that in the Valley is called 'the 101' is called '101' in SF.

[tifosi77]

BTW, I hate how cheap it is to get there from your area. I have seen deals as low as $99 RT.

And as for LAX, I swear whenever we arrive or depart, we spend 20 minutes taxiing to the gate, which is always apparently on the far side of the airport.

The problem is that there are 2 pairs of parallel runways, and the outboard runways are used for arrivals. So that means no matter where you land or where your gate is, you have to cross an active runway to get to it, so that alone can cause delays. Also, the terminals are at the east end of the field.... which is the direction arrivals approach from 95% of the time. That means you ground roll straight past all the gates by a mile and a half no matter which side of the field you arrive at. So you have to do a 180 and taxi back over all that distance at 15 mph.

They usually do a good job with routing arrivals to the same side of the field as the arrival gate - a Southwest flight isn't likely to land on the south side of the field, because they're Terminal 1. But departures are more governed by what direction the post-takeoff clearing turn gets the flight on its way and out of LA Class-B the safest and fastest. So that Southwest jet won't often arrive on the south side, but if a flight is to Mexico it may leave from the south side... which means approximately 3 miles of taxing, because the only way to cross from one side of the field to the other is behind the west side of the terminal buildings. So aircraft have to taxi aaaaalllll the way to the west end, cross the tarmac, then taxi aaaallllll the way back to the east to get to the departure end of the runway.

[Shyster]

LAX is limited by its legacy layout, but that's why I as an aviation geek factor runway layout and utilization into my personal evaluation of what makes a good airport. Places like JFK, O'Hare, and Boston Logan have some pretty messy runway layouts than can lead to long taxi times. Or you have SFO with intersecting actives. (I know they operate safely and have for decades, but two pairs of intersecting actives makes me itch.) That's why I think Denver has the best runway setup in north America. With its "pinwheel" layout, pretty much any way the wind blows, there are short taxi times/distances for both arrivals and departures. For example, I turned on LiveATC, and right now they're landing on 35L and 35R and taking off on 34L and 25. Arrivals and departures are on opposite sides of the airport, the arrivals on 35R don't have to cross 35L thanks to taxiways P7 and ED, and both arrivals and departures are close to the airport when they start or end their respective takeoff and landing rolls.

PIT actually isn't bad in this regard either. For winds from the west (which is most of the time), PIT takes off on 28R and lands on 28L and 28C. That gives short taxi distances for both departures and arrivals.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Air travel in June to Dirty Myrtle was up 35% from June 2019 (which was the previous record month for air travel)

https://www.wbtw.com/news/grand-strand/ ... d-to-2019/

Impressive.

[AuthorTony]

Rental car prices sure have gone up in the last 8 years. I used to be able to get a weekend rental from Enterprise for under $100 and rented vehicles for a week long trip for under $400. I just checked prices for a weekend rental in August and the cheapest available option is over $100 a day. Guess I'll be staying home.

[willeyeam]

There's a shortage on rental cars right now. These aren't normal prices